An ethnomusicologist's expense report

Wanted: Ethnomusicologist. Own mosquito net and battery charger required.

One of our current projects in music is working with the Library of Congress to digitize some of their audio collections for our African American Song and American Song databases. We're currently working through the Alan Lomax Haiti Collection, a large collection of field recordings recorded by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1936 and 1937 in various locations in Haiti. One of the most exciting aspects of the project means being able to look at Lomax's hand-written field notes (most of them scribbled on pieces of paper) as well as his transcriptions and lyrics.

Included in the middle of one of the boxes of Lomax's notes, I happened upon an itemized expense report from Lomax to the Library of Congress dated in 1938 asking for compensation for expenses incurred during his trip.

Here's a sampling of some of the expenses listed:

• December 18, 1936 -- Copy of Jules Faine's "Philologie Creole", essential in learning local dialect; unobtainable in the Library of Congress $1.30
• December 19, 1936 -- Dr. Martelly Siecle, National Hygiene Service, for series of typhoid injections $1.00
• December 25, 1936 -- Refreshment for singers $0.36
• December 28, 1936 -- One mosquito net $2.00
• December 31, 1936 -- Tips to a group of wandering singers and dancers $0.75
• January 3, 1937 -- Exide Battery Shop (charging one battery) $0.80

His total compensation for the whole trip was $72.15, which included steamship travel to Haiti, meals, and bus/taxi travel around Haiti. The state authorized allowance for per diem in 1936 was $5.00 per day!